Warriors at Nuggets
The Denver Nuggets brushed aside a poor performance on the road at the Los Angeles Clippers by coming home on Sunday and burying the defending champion Toronto Raptors in a 133-118 victory. The Nuggets will try to maintain that same intensity when they take on a team at the opposite end of the standings in the visiting Golden State Warriors on Tuesday.
Denver, which will play nine of 11 on the road after finishing up with the Warriors, was crushed 132-103 at the Clippers in a head-to-head battle for the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference on Friday but leaned on stars Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic on Sunday to bounce right back. "They responded. They definitely responded," Nuggets coach Michael Malone told reporters. "That was the worst version of ourselves in L.A. the other night, from top to bottom. Myself and all the players. Tonight, we challenged ourselves to go out and perform (to) our best version of ourselves. I thought we did that." The Warriors snapped an eight-game slide with a victory in Phoenix on Saturday but could not manage the second end of the back-to-back and fell at home to the Washington Wizards 124-110 on Sunday. Golden State's eight-man rotation on Sunday featured guard Mychal Mulder logging 31 minutes in his second career game and two starters - Juan Toscano-Anderson and Dragan Bender - who were signed last month.
TIME: 9 p.m. ET. TV: NBCS Bay Area, Altitude
ABOUT THE WARRIORS (13-48): Golden State originally planned on superstar guard Stephen Curry (broken hand) making his return on Sunday but instead pushed that return later into March and will have Curry go through a full five-on-five scrimmage with G League Santa Cruz on Monday to work on his conditioning. Swingman Andrew Wiggins, who has yet to play with Curry since being acquired from Minnesota at the trade deadline, scored a team-high 27 points on Sunday and is looking forward to the two-time MVP's return, which won't happen until at least Thursday. "I'm very excited, I feel like everybody is," forward Andrew Wiggins said. "He's the type of player that single-handedly, he's going to come and change the way everyone plays for the better."
ABOUT THE NUGGETS (41-19): Murray got Denver started by knocking down his first five 3-point attempts on Sunday, but it was Jokic who brought the team across the finish line. The 25-year-old All-Star recorded his 12th triple-double of the season with 23 points, 18 rebounds and 11 assists in the victory and shot 8-of-11 from the floor - the fifth consecutive game in which he shot better than 60 percent. Denver shot 56.6 percent from the floor and totaled 38 assists on 47 field goals in the win while getting a big game off the bench from small forward Torrey Craig - 17 points on 7-of-11 shooting in 16 minutes.
BUZZER BEATERS
1. Nuggets PF Paul Millsap (ankle) sat out Sunday and is day-to-day.
2. Warriors PF Draymond Green (knee) missed four of the last five games and is questionable.
3. Denver needed overtime to earn a 134-131 victory at Golden State in the latest meeting on Jan. 16.